Cloud - The power of the other : the startling effect other people have on you, from the boardroom to the bedroom and beyond-and what to do about it

H uman performance, your performance, has its limits. Or does it?

In large measure, that question is the focus of this booknot so much whether there are limits, as that is almost an unknowable question. After all, who knows what the real human limits are? Every time we think someone reaches one, someone else surpasses what we thought was the apex. What we think is the known limit is always being redefined, even for ourselves.

Our focus here will be on how and why some people are able to surpass limits. In my work with executives and high-performance organizations, this is the issue we address, in one of two forms.

The first form involves some known limit my clients are experiencing: a pattern, an obstacle, a leadership dilemma or challenge, a conflict with a person, a weakness, or problemsomething that they know is getting in the way, blocking their desired future, their business, or even threatening their lives. Something is limiting them... even if they dont know exactly what it is.

The second form doesnt involve a known problem or issue at all. There is just the desire to get better, to grow past a current level, to have or do more: more potential, more profits, more horsepower, more fun, more meaning, more love,... more joy. These clients know there is more to be had within themselves, their business, or their lives. And they want it.

You may have already identified the issue keeping you from the next level of performance, or you just want to make sure you get as far as you can go. In either case, you want to surpass your current limit, your current reality. How that is actually done is the subject of this book: how we become better , how we become more .

And heres the good news: its not a mystery. We know how it happens. Better yet, you can learn how.

MORE WHEN THERE IS NO MORE

When members of the U.S. Navy become Navy SEALs, they dont win a lottery. In one of most performance-driven selection processes in the world, they earn it. Selected from the top of the top of the top, applicants must be the best of the best at every step along the way. There are no favors. They must perform in a true meritocracy.

There are many steps, many qualifications, and many gates that must be passed through to get to the final stages of the selection process. Toward the end of the training program, called BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL) training, the aspiring SEALs must pass the test of all testsHell Week, a grueling exercise requiring the utmost physical and mental endurance, pushing these already-at-the-top specimens to their absolute limits.

Enduring near-hypothermia in cold water, long-distance swims during sleep deprivation, and intense physical strain, more than two thirds of the candidates dont make it through the training. And remember, they are all the best of the best. Most ultimately ring the bell, signaling that they have given up. But actually they have rarely given up, for they still want it desperately. It is more that their bodies and their minds have hit the limit of their capabilities. There is no more to give, no way to do better. Whether it is physical pain, mental exhaustion, or both, most candidates lack the resources that will allow them to surpass their own limits and reach the next step, the toughest one required to become a SEAL. The entire selection process is set up to find out exactly where those limits are, who has them, and who can surpass them. The ones who make it through the process of pushing these limits are the ones who are sent out into battles that require humans to perform past normal limits on a regular basis. Life or death and victory or defeat depend on that very ability.

My brother-in-law Mark was a Navy SEAL. He made it through BUDS successfully. Mark was the brother I never had (I had two sisters), the kind of brother every kid wants. I used to love to hear his stories (the ones he could tell me without having to kill me) about the extraordinary feats he and his fellow SEALs would routinely pull off: jumping out of an airplane at crazy altitudes, hitting the surface of a cold ocean in some faraway land, changing into battle gear, taking a power nap on the ocean floor, and then boarding an enemy ship in the darkness and taking it down. And then asking, after all that, So whats for lunch? as if it were just another day at work. Routines that none of the rest of us could think of enduring, much less succeeding at. Incredible.

We lost Mark in the Iraq war. He died a heros death, doing exactly what he loved: using his skills, with his team of comrades, to fight for our country and deliver people to safety who had been captured by terrorists. It was a beyond-devastating blow for all of us who loved and admired him, and we felt deep appreciation for the sacrificial person that he was. He left his wife and infant daughter behind, a large extended family, and many friends whose lives he had touched.

In the aftermath of his death, I got to meet many of his SEAL team members, colleagues and comrades, most of whom had fought side by side with him in Afghanistan and Iraq. They shared stories of Marks courage, skills, personality, spirit, and love of life. He had left a mark on many, many lives. We were one big community of those who were touched by him, grieving, remembering, and celebrating together, sharing memories and stories.

The story that relates to our topic here is one of the clearest examples I know of how human limits, when encountered, are surpassed. It was relayed by one of Marks SEAL team members in the days after his death.

His teammate, whom Ill call Bryce, was in the ocean during Hell Week, swimming the last long leg to the finish line. Mark had already made it; he had passed the final test and knew that he would become a SEAL. For him, it was done, and he was standing on the rocks above the water, eagerly watching his buddies strive toward the goal.

That was when Bryce hit the wall.

As he described it, it was that moment when his body would just go no more. It was done. Nothing left. He tried to will himself to keep going, but his body would not obey.

Maybe you can relate to this in some way. If you have ever been to the gym and lifted a weight for enough repetitions over and over, you got to that same point: your arms were done. No more. There was nothing left to give, no surge of will that would make them do one more rep.

That was where Bryce found himself at that moment, beginning to sink in the cold water, totally out of fuel, strength, or the ability to go another yard. Push as he would, strain as he would, his body and his skills were failing him.

Imagine that moment: all of those years, all of that training, all of that sacrifice... about to be gone. He could see his dreams sinking with him, about to be over. What must it have felt like, to have gone through everything he had gone through to make it up to the very end? I am sure that the lights were going out in his heart, as his body would go no further. Until...

As he told the story of going down, about to call for help and signal that it was over for him, his eyes fell upon the land ahead. There was Mark, standing on the shore. Mark saw him, and Bryce said that Mark gave him a huge fist pump and a yell, signaling to Bryce that he could do it. Their eyes locked for a few seconds, and as Bryce described it,